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ANCIENT 

and 

MODERN MODES 

of 

BURIAL 



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BY 

DR. MENDEL SILBER 

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Acting Dean of the University of 
New Mexico 



COPYRIGHTED 
JULY, 1911 
BY 

DR. MENDEL SILBER 




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©CI.A298369 

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ANCIENT AND MODERN MODES 

OF BURIAL 



ITH a better understanding of man’s 
position in the universe and a saner 
appreciation of life, death has lost 
many of its horrors to the mind of modern man. 
We no longer picture death as a monster devour- 
ing man tooth and nail, as the Romans repre- 
sented it. 

Nor do we any more regard the dead as 
inimical deities that have to be appeased by 
sacrifices and whose good will is to be secured by 
certain ceremonies. 

We do not rend our garments, nor don sack- 
cloth, nor cover our heads with ashes, nor shave 
our hair, nor fast and go barefooted, nor do we 
hire professional wailing women to sing dirges, 
nor do we make incisions in our flesh and offer 
to the dead locks of our hair or drops of our 
blood. 

We say today: “Todesbluethe ist das Leben, 
Lebensbluethe istder Tod.” We consider death 



as a natural and necessary thing, as part and 
parcel of God’s beneficent scheme in the creation 
of man, as the “divine wand that leads the gener- 
ations forward.” 

Yet, while in theory we have advanced 
far beyond the concepts of the ancient world, in 
practice we are much worse. We make of 
death a thing vastly more terrible than a monster 
with teeth and nails. We sacrifice to our dead 
much more than merely drops of blood and locks 
of hair. 

Our present mode of burial is such that one 
must shudder and shiver at the very thought of 
dying. 

With that dismal, damp, dark hole in the 
ground as a “last resting place,” with the positive 
certainty that the “last resting place” permits of 
no rest because of the snakes and worms and 
elements of nature, who can help being sickened 
by the mere suggestion of the grave? 

Who also can contemplate the awful sacri- 
fices our present mode of burial entails without 
realizing the enormity of these? 

Human health is threatened wherever there 
is a cemetery. Thousands of human lives are 
lost every year from the effects of the pestiferous 
graveyard. This does and can happen in two 
ways. Either through the pollution of water, 


4 


as has been proven in many an epidemic of 
typhoid fever, or through the protection, preserva- 
tion and propagation of numerous and deadly 
bacteria, as the anthrax bacilli, the Koch’s 
comma bacilli, giving rise to cholera, the Klebs- 
Loeffler bacilli, which cause diphtheria, the zy- 
mophyte, to which are due certain disorders of 
fermentation, and a host of other micro-organisms 
that affect the skin or mucous membrane, or any 
other organ or tissue of the body. 

In view of all this does it not seem passing 
strange that the present mode of earth-burial, 
accompanied, as it is, by so harrowing and horri- 
ble a feeling, so dangerous and detrimental as it 
has proved to be to the life and health of the hu- 
man race, should still be adhered to in this most 
modern age of sanitation and science? 

Especially does it seem strange when we 
remember that a vastly preferable way of dis- 
posing of our dead has recently been placed at 
our disposal. 

Until recently the only alternative was cre- 
mation. 

Cremation could not, however, become a 
general custom, for, although it meets the demand 
of sanitation, it does not answer the dictates of 
sentiment. 

Lately the idea of entombment was con- 


5 


ceived and, with the aid of science, a number of 
“mausoleums” have been erected, both east and 
west of the Mississippi, which have proved to 
answer every purpose from the standpoint of 
sanitation, sentiment, economy and aesthetics. 

Leaving out the detailed description of 
these mausoleums, some of which I have had 
occasion to view and study, it seems important to 
ascertain whether or not such a mode and man- 
ner of burial is permissible from a religious point 
of view. 

No matter what our practices be in life, 
even though we be most indifferent to the voice 
of religion while living, in death we do not dare 
to disobey the dictum of our faith. 

It seems imperative, therefore, that a word 
be said about the attitude of religion to entomb- 
ment. The time will come, as come it must, 
when a decision will have to be made and this 
question shall once and for all time have to be 
settled. 

What, then, is the view and verdict of reli- 
gion with regard to mausoleum-burial? 

As far as Judaism is concerned, it may 
unhesitatingly be said that it should not only 
permit, but even prefer the mausoleum. 

If in other and newer faiths mausoleum- 
burial be considered a breach of custom, in 


6 


Judaism this method of burial cannot but be 
regarded as an old and established practice. 

This view can be sustained by the Bible, 
substantiated by the Talmud, and supplemented 
by the post-Talmudic Codes and Responsa 
literature. Already the names given to the place 
of burial point to the fact that burial in rocks or 
stone buildings or caves was the rule rather than 
the exception among the ancient Israelites. Thus 
the prophet Isaiah (Chap. 14:19) refers to the 
resting place of the dead as “abne bor,” stony 
grave, and “bayith” house (Chap. 14:18). 
Job calls it (Chap. 30:23) “beth moed,” as- 
sembly house. In Nehemiah (Chap. 2:3) it is 
termed “beth hakvoroth,” house of graves. 

Still clearer is the reference in Isaiah (Chap. 
22:16), where the prophet says to the treasurer 
Shebna : “What hast thou here, and whom 

hast thou here, that thou hast hewed thee out a 
sepulchre here in rock?” This indicates plainly 
that the custom at that time was to deposit the 
dead in family sepulchres which consisted of 
caves hewn in rocks. 

In a number of instances mention is also made 
in the Bible of special buildings used as mauso- 
leums as in I Samuel, 25:1, and 28:3; I. Kings, 
2:34; Chronicles, 33:20. 

At a much later period, in Talmudic times, 


7 


the custom of entombment in rocks, caves and 
mausoleums was still in common vogue. The 
phrase often used for the closing of a grave is 
“sotham hagolel,” which means “he closed the 
top-stone.” From this it may readily be inferred 
that the grave itself was made of stones, one of 
which was used for the entrance and put in place 
after the coffin or corpse had been deposited. 
Another illustration of the kind and character of 
the tombs used in Talmudic times may be found 
in the Mishnah (Babba Bathre 100a) where 
Rabbi Simon ben Gamaliel says, in determining 
how thick the walls of a grave should be: “It all 
depends upon the (hardness of) rock.” The Tal- 
mud also speaks of two types of graves in general 
use, “Keboroth,” built graves, and “Kochin,” 
dug or hewn graves, the latter being vaults or 
crypts which, from the description given of them 
(Moed Katon, 8b), were constructed very much 
similar to the mausoleum vaults of today. 

That this mode of burial was by no means 
the exception can be gathered from the discoveries 
and descriptions of modern scholars, such as 
Wilde, who was the first to carry on wide in- 
vestigations; Van de Velde, Renan, Luncz and 
others, who have found any number of graves of 
this variety in Palestine and Babylonia. Luncz 
knows of no less than three hundred such tombs, 


8 


besides the more famous ones of David, John 
Hyrcanus, Alexander Jannaeus, Herod, the vari- 
ous other kings and queens, the prophets and the 
patriarchs. Nor was the rock-entombment con- 
fined only to the Biblical and Talmudical periods. 
Numerous investigations of the last century by 
Bosio, Garrucci, De Rossi, Marrucci, Nicolaus 
Mueller, Ascoli and Lenormant, brought to light 
the fact that wherever the Jews went, and to a 
late date, they adopted this mode of burial. 
Jewish catacombs built out of rock and containing 
many crypts or niches have been discovered in 
the various parts of Italy, on the island of Sicily, 
in Africa and Egypt. In fact, judging from 
references to rock- tombs (“Rivosh,” Responsum, 
114), these must have extended to the thirteenth 
century. 

Thus we see that during a long period of 
time, extending over an era of thousands of years, 
the Jewish mode of burial was in the main not 
earth-burial, but rock-burial. 

Although they may not have possessed the 
knowledge that we have today of the terrible re- 
sults that may and do accrue from earth-burial, 
our forebears must have realized the danger 
sufficiently to go to the enormous expense and 
trouble of cutting caves into rocks. 

Is it possible, then, that we Jews of the 


twentieth century, upon being informed that from 
the Jewish standpoint the mausoleum is not only 
permissible, but by far preferable to the present 
cemetery, that the Jew adopted the present mode 
of burial not from choice, but from necessity — 
is it possible that we should not see the impera- 
tiveness of a change? 

Is it possible that we, with our additional 
knowledge and skill, with our finer sensibilities, 
with the accessories that science has placed at 
our command, should still adhere to a custom so 
pernicious to human life and health, so distress- 
ing to our sight and sense, so destructive to both 
the dead and the living? 

The least one can do for the dear de- 
parted is to preserve their bodies. 

The least one can do for the living is to 
protect their health. 

The present mode of burial makes it abso- 
lutely impossible to do either. By depositing 
the mortal remains of our loved ones in the cold, 
damp ground, we wrong both the dead and the 
living; the former inevitably become a sure prey 
to decay, decomposition and the hosts of creep- 
ing, crawling things of the earth, while the living 
are invariably exposed to the danger of despair, 
disease and destruction. 

Can we, then, afford to continue our pres- 


10 


ent mode of burial? I think not. Indeed, at 
least the leaders of thought among us have for 
a long time known the evils attendant upon 
earth-burial and have consistently and conscien- 
tiously striven to bring about a change. But, 
unfortunately, there was not, until very recently, 
any alternative. The only other way was cre- 
mation and, although the sense and spirit of 
Judaism are undeniably against the burning of 
bodies, in 1 892 the Central Conference of 
American Rabbis resolved not to oppose cre- 
mation. 

In doing so, the rabbis simply decided to 
choose the lesser of the two evils. They re- 
solved to acquiese although their sentiments were 
not for the measure. They were prompted in 
this by the motives of pure humanity. 

They realized that the graveyard afforded 
neither preservation of the dead nor protection to 
the living; and so they determined at least to save 
the living since they could not alter the condition 
of the dead. 

Had the modern mausoleum, with its per- 
fect measures of sanitation, with its beautiful and 
simple equipment, and splendid and convenient 
arrangement, had such an institution existed at 
that time, being in full accord with Jewish law 
and tradition, there is not the least doubt but 


that the Conference would have unanimously 
and unhesitatingly declared in favor of this as 
preferable and superior to any other mode of 
burial. 

“In our present funeral and mourning rites,’ 
another Conference declared (Montreal, Can- 
ada, 1897), “our prime consideration should be 
the living. In the cleansing and clothing of the 
corpse, in the style of the coffin, in the funeral 
service and sermon, in the disposition of the 
body, in the mourning customs, the dead must 
serve the living, not the living the dead.’ 

There can be no question as to the cor- 
rectness of the view thus expressed from the 
Jewish standpoint. The Talmud already held 
(Moed Koton, 18a), “in matters of mourning the 
law always sides with the most progressive.’ 

This being so, there can be no doubt 
about the advisability and admissibility of the 
change from earth-burial to mausoleum-burial. 

There is but one other thing to consider, 
and that is the ritual. It so happens, however, 
that our funeral service would hardly have to be 
changed. The various psalms and prayers that 
are usually recited could remain unaltered. The 
only change that might be necessitated would be 
at the “committal,” when some earth is custom- 
arily thrown upon the coffin and the words 


12 


spoken: “Ophor atoh veel ophor toshub,” 
“Earth thou art and to earth thou shalt return.” 
This could readily be substituted by placing a 
flower upon the casket (a practice which was 
prevalent in Talmudic times), and by the im- 
pressive and consoling phrase: “Lech (lechi, 
fern.) besholom el mishkovcho,” (mishkovech, 
fern.), “Go in peace to thy resting place.” 

To sum up: We have at the present time a 
better understanding of nature and the universe. 
We do not consider the dead as hostile deities 
that have to be appeased by sacrifice. We, 
therefore, no longer have some of the horrible 
mourning rites and customs that were common 
in ancient times. But our present mode of 
burial entails sacrifices to the dead that far sur- 
pass in severity those of the ancients. We sacri- 
fice human health and life. 

The sight of interment in a cold, damp 
grave is harrowing. The thought that the loved 
ones will in a short time undergo decay and de- 
composition and fall a prey to “the small, cold 
worm that fretteth the enshrouded form” is 
sickening. 

The certainty that the graveyard is a men- 
ace to mankind, it having been proven that the 
cemetery gives rise to any number of fatal dis- 
eases, infesting the water and the air, and by 


13 


serving as a breeding place for bacteria, makes 
it strange that we should still adhere to such a 
custom. 

Especially does it seem strange in view of 
the fact that a much better method has recently 
been placed at our command — the mauso- 
leum. 

This answers every purpose. It is sanitary, 
protects the living and preserves the dead; it is 
both aesthetic and economical. 

The only thing that would have to be as- 
certained is whether religion sanctions such a 
mode of burial. 

In the light of Jewish law, history and 
tradition, there can be no question about it. En- 
tombment in buildings and caves of rocks was 
a very common way of disposing of the dead 
among the Jews in the Biblical period, in Tal- 
mudic times, and during the middle ages. The 
names for grave in the Bible and Talmud prove 
this. 

Numerous references in the written and oral 
law give unmistakable evidence of it. This view 
is further borne out by modern travelers and ex- 
plorers who have discovered and described 
Jewish graves, caves and catacombs. 

We cannot afford, therefore, to continue 
our present mode of burial. Many of our leaders 


14 


have for a long time striven to substitute some- 
thing better. 

Until now there was no choice. Crema- 
tion until recently was the only alternative. 
Cremation is against the sense and spirit of 
Judaism, yet so great was the desire on the part 
of our spiritual leaders to do away with the 
pernicious custom of earth-burial, that the Con- 
ference of 1 892 resolved not to oppose cremation. 

With the mausoleum, there is no need for 
■resorting to cremation. 

Burial in the mausoleum is incomparably 
superior to cremation, inasmuch as it not only 
protects the living, but also preserves the dead. 
Besides, it is in full accord with the laws and 
traditions of Judaism. 

The present ritual, too, with the exception 
of one phrase, could remain unaltered. 

Hence, there can be no doubt in the mind 
of anyone but that a change from earth-burial 
to the mausoleum is both imminent and impera- 
tive. 


15 




























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